Virginia Pharmacy Says No to Birth Control
The latest drug store to stop selling contraceptives and filling birth control prescriptions–appropriately named Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy–has set up shop in Chantilly, Virginia, according to today’s Washington Post.
Apparently, this pharmacy is also not selling candy or soda. And don’t forget about the bishop who came in to sprinkle holy water on the store’s shelves. What is this, the 19th century?
Virginia already has the unfortunate law that allows pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription without any justification whatsoever. It’s a classic case of an individual’s faith trumping safe, medical access for all, and a spokesperson from NARAL Pro-Choice America sums this up nicely:
“If this emboldens other pharmacies in other parts of the state, it could really affect low-income and rural women in terms of access,” said Tarina Keene, executive director of the Virginia chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League.
If pharmacists are allowed to refuse service to “sinful” men or women having–God forbid–sex, what could stop other pharmacists from filling prescriptions for lung cancer patients because they object to the individual’s history of smoking? Or worse–pharmacists who will eventually be allowed to discriminate based on race?
One surprising statistic: a Gallop poll reveals that 75 percent of U.S. Catholics believe you can be a “good Catholic” even if you use birth control. The culture is already changing, and pharmacists need to be available to provide safe contraceptives for people who need it.
No arguments I’ve heard against this pharmacy even begin to hold water. It’s a private business. They can sell–or not sell–whatever they please, regardless of their reasoning. Why is there even any debate. If it’s not in their inventory, then it’s not in their inventory. Case closed. I personally applaud the place for taking this “In His Steps”-type move (it’s the book from whence we get “WWJD”), and they’re not decrying the fact that other places do choose to purvey this stuff. They’re just telling us that they won’t! They’re just choosing not to be enablers, and they’re not judging anybody. Kudos to ‘em! Get over it!
When I grew up in the South in the ’50s & ’60s, this very same argument was used by private businesses that didn’t want to serve Blacks. It didn’t hold water then, and it still doesn’t.
If you become a doctor or pharmacist, you are obligated to meet the needs of your patients, regardless of your personal superstition. If you can’t do that, you are simply a bigot… no more, no less. For that reason, you should be forced to surrender your license to practice… unless it’s to practice witchcraft. There’s no room for that kind of narrowmindedness in today’s multicultural society.
Uhm, hello? What argument was used not to serve Blacks that you are applying here? You’re off base with that defense. They’re not selling candy or condoms to only some of the people; they’re excluding everybody! And that’s gestapo talk, taking someone’s license because they don’t offer a particular product. If all doctors met all the needs of their patients then there would be no need for referrals and specialists and labs where you have to go for testing! And the pharmacy isn’t hating on anyone; just making it’s own choice. Now customers just have to make theirs.
I believe you may be off base in your understanding of Hank’s comparison. He is not literally saying this particular pharmacy is denying people services based on race. His point is that if medical professionals are allowed to deny people services based on personal religious beliefs, what is to stop them from next denying people based on race or gender etc.
For example, would it be acceptable for a pharmacy, operating as a private business, to offer services to whites only? Why not? It is a private business and it is their right to decide who they serve based on their personal beliefs about race. If you think that is wrong switch “race” with “religion” and you then understand why this is a problem.
I meant to jump into this debate earlier. Anonymousnupe is right. The government has no business in deciding what a privately own business sells. Also, the right to refuse to serve someone or a group of people is absolute. Sadly, this means that a business owner does have the right to discriminate against people for whatever reason he or she chooses.
Hank, the discrimination against blacks that you discuss was not simply business owners deciding not to serve blacks. That discrimination was a set of laws that are referred to as “Jim Crow Laws”, “Anti-miscegenation Laws” or “Segregation Laws”. It wasn’t the business owners who were denying blacks, it was the state governments, with the backing of the US Supreme Court by virtue of its 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson that did so. The modern civil rights protests began only when the Court reversed itself in 1954’s Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
The problem isn’t the ridiculous prejudices of the business owners, it is the involvement of the government into areas where it does not belong. I am sure that there were business owners who would have been happy to serve blacks-but the government PROHIBITED it. This is because the money that blacks used was just as good as the money that whites used to pay debts. This brings me to my next point.
To answer all of the “What would prevent the business owners from refusing to sell to blacks, gays, women, etc..? it is GREED. A Pharmacist that refuses to sell birth control, soda and candy is losing out on a lot of business and not just from these items. For example: suppose, a woman from Chantilly, VA wants to have her birth control prescription filled but the pharmacist refuses to fill it because of the pharmacist
William and anonymous:
A Pharmacy is not like a convenience store that can buy and sell products as it sees fit to whoever wants them. Pharmacies are part of the health-care profession, so they don’t function quite like typical private businesses, even though they are privately owned. Only customers with prescriptions can make purchases, and the pharmacy is required to fill those prescriptions, as part of their role as a health-care provider. So if a customer brings in a prescription, and the pharmacist refuses to fill or to release the prescription, then that creates a serious problem that cannot be solved by just “going somewhere else.” In addition, patients often have particular pharmacies assigned to them. Further, no one is forced to become a pharmacist. The profession entails providing the health services required of them, and if they have a problem with that, they can find another job.
But we do agree that the law should be amended at least. If a pharmacy as a whole will refuse to provide birth control, then I would say that they must release any prescriptions for it that come to them from unwitting customers.